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Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

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Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#91

Post by mnkypete »

uuid_to_string wrote: post #46

Our current testing utilities are relatively small and compile with modest amounts of RAM. Hobbit's netcat, WR Stevens' sock, etc. We have security auditing rules that require us to compile the programs we run from source. We prefer small programs as they are easier to audit. Does anyone know how much RAM is required to compile Chromium? Can it be done on a laptop?

I would not recommend that. I compiled Chromium a few month ago with my i7 desktop with 8gig ram and it took at least an hour to finish, if not longer. I don't think RAM is that much of an issue, but I wouldn't go lower than at least 4gig of RAM.

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#92

Post by mnkypete »

sleepyhead wrote: post #74
threeseed wrote: post #35

Also would take a look at SoapUI if you are dealing with multi step flows: http://www.soapui.org

Perhaps the worst software I have ever used.

maybe for REST, but seriously, if you ever need to test SOAP services - I hope you don't - this is probably the best there is..

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#93

Post by ollyculverhouse »

bottled_poe wrote: post #80
LocalPCGuy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a Mac app when the original app works across platforms

I would say an app for chrome is just as accessible as an app for mac.

Chrome can be quickly installed (free) on all platforms. If I don't have a Mac, which I don't, how would I install this Mac application?

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#94

Post by felipesabino »

SixSigma wrote: post #85
abritishguy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of things that you can do easily with postman but would be difficult with a CLI tool.

I doubt that completely, citation needed.

I agree that CLI are awesome and you can do way more using it that with any other UI (specially a web one), but taking HTTP API testing as an example, postman lets you do a bunch of stuff that are so simple with one click that I can see some people not wanting to dive in the CLI world, write a bunch of stuff and also having to store environment data for requests with extra files (I think thats where the 'difficult' from the previous comment comes along, but that's just me guessing...)

Taking that into consideration, Postman's web interface lets you

- See all the request history that you can easily reply any of them with one click

- Save requests and share them (including a collection of requests)

- Have and share environment variables to change, for example, between production and development API urls, password, params, etc (I know, a CLI also lets you do that, but it soooo simple to just select and preview the environment variables from the list)

- easily handle oAuth and other authentication forms out of the box

But you will suffer (a lot) trying to use Postman to - Handle binary input/outputs

- Stream responses

- Handle cookies

So, depending on what your day to day problems are you should use a different tool... Oh, and I didn't know about HTTPie, thanks for sharing :)

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#95

Post by snikch »

SixSigma wrote: post #85
abritishguy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of things that you can do easily with postman but would be difficult with a CLI tool.

I doubt that completely, citation needed.

I find your response to be really arrogant. Postman is an easily installed Chrome extension that can be supplied to everyone on your team, regardless of skill level. Requiring a cli isn't as easy as a one click install - there's dependencies (Python etc.) that are required which, while easy for many, aren't as simple for a lot of web developers - especially those who focus on front end development and may just need an easy tool for inspecting API requests they need to make.

There's still a wide market for GUI based programs, and Postman is an excellent extension that I've used for years (even though I'm a CLI guy myself). It's always there, easy to use, and powerful to boot.

Edit 1: Grammar / Spelling

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#96

Post by TomAnthony »

te_chris wrote: post #19

I use Rested, it's a simple, cheap, mac app and works great. http://www.helloresolven.com/portfolio/rested/ EDIT: Why the hell was I downvoted for suggesting a good app? goddammit...

This looks great! Thanks a lot for the recommendation, I'm going to buy it now. Postman also looks good so installed that too!

(I think your comment was fine - it serves a similar purpose so if people are interested in this thread there is a good chance [like me] they might be interested in this too.)

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#97

Post by andkon »

snikch wrote: post #95
SixSigma wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that completely, citation needed.

I find your response to be really arrogant. Postman is an easily installed Chrome extension that can be supplied to everyone on your team, regardless of skill level. Requiring a cli isn't as easy as a one click install - there's dependencies (Python etc.) that are required which, while easy for many, aren't as simple for a lot of web developers - especially those who focus on front end development and may just need a…

Totally agreed. Another benefit (or set of benefits): when you've got 5 CLI tabs open already, and you're trying to remember where your curl response went, it's nice to know Postman has (a) history of recent requests in a readily clickable list, (b) a different window that's easily accessible, and (c) any saved headers and tokens that I can otherwise never remember.

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#98

Post by pascalo »

a85 wrote: post #50

Thanks for the great comments everyone. Postman developer here. Woke up to find the link at the top of HN. Feels awesome. :)

Thanks for the great tool. I use it daily at the moment. Gotten much better over the last few months as well.

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#99

Post by [deleted] »

snikch wrote: post #95
SixSigma wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that completely, citation needed.

I find your response to be really arrogant. Postman is an easily installed Chrome extension that can be supplied to everyone on your team, regardless of skill level. Requiring a cli isn't as easy as a one click install - there's dependencies (Python etc.) that are required which, while easy for many, aren't as simple for a lot of web developers - especially those who focus on front end development and may just need a…

[deleted]

Re: Postman: a powerful HTTP client (for Chrome) to test web services

#100

Post by jjm »

a85 wrote: post #48
stock_toaster wrote: post #16

I prefer cli tools for api driving/testing, and httpie[1] works pretty well for that. [1]: https://github.com/jkbr/httpie

I like httpie but the app can do a lot more than sending requests now (which you might not be able to do in a CLI tool). You can write tests and run a bunch of requests together to simulate different scenarios: http://www.getpostman.com/docs/jetpacks_writing_tests .

Then throw HTTPie into a bash script.
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